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Food labels to reveal artery-clogging trans fat
« on: Jul 9th, 2003, 1:02pm » |
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Food labels to reveal artery-clogging trans fat
Wednesday, July 9, 2003 Posted: 10:27 AM EDT (1427 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Trans fat hasn't gotten the attention its infamous cousin, saturated fat, earned through warnings and labels. That's about to change: After 10 years of debate, the government is requiring food labels to reveal exact levels of the artery clogger.
"We have so many Americans -- 500,000 -- that are suffering each year from heart disease and heart defects and a lot of that (is) attributable to trans fatty acids," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, appearing on CNN.
Trans fat is the stuff that helps make such foods as doughnuts, french fries, crackers and fried chicken taste so good. But it's at least as dangerous to the heart as saturated fat -- and many doctors consider it worse. And until now, consumers have had no way of knowing how much trans fat they eat.
"We think if the consumers know what is best for them, they will purchase the proper foods in the proper amounts and do a much better job of improving their health," Thompson said.
Food and Drug Administration regulations unveiled Wednesday will require nutrition labels to include a new line listing the amount of trans fat in each food right under the amount of saturated fat.
Add the two lines together to learn the total of heart-risky fats in every serving.
"Our choices about our diets are choices about our health, and those choices should be based on the best available scientific information," said FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan. "This label change means trans fat can no longer lurk, hidden, in our food choices."
"It's a good first step," said Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which petitioned FDA in 1993 to make the change. "People will be able to compare different products and determine which ones are worse for their hearts."
But Wootan cautioned that the comparisons won't be easy: The labels won't tell consumers how much each cookie or dollop of margarine counts against their daily allotment of total unhealthy fat. Nor will they bear a message FDA debated this spring -- that trans fat consumption should be as low as possible.
The FDA promised more research to find ways to educate consumers about heart-damaging fats so that they make better food choices.
Consumer choices
The FDA has estimated that merely revealing trans fat content on labels would save between 2,000 and 5,600 lives a year, as people either would choose healthier foods or manufacturers would change their recipes to leave out the damaging ingredient.
The government is giving companies until 2006 to phase in the change.
But some companies already have begun jockeying for position in the anti-trans fat market: Frito-Lay has announced it is eliminating trans fat from its popular Doritos, Tostitos and Cheetos, and became the first major manufacturer to voluntarily begin adding trans fat content to the labels of other brands earlier this year. Wednesday, Unilever Bestfoods announced its line of "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" margarine spreads will be free of trans fat by next year.
"Clearly this is going to be a major change to food labels, and it's going to help consumers who are seeking information about trans fat content of foods to find it," said Tim Willard of the National Food Processors Association.
Saturated fat is found primarily in meat and other products containing animal fat. People are advised to eat no more than 20 grams a day, about 10 percent of calories.
Some surveys suggest trans fat comprises up to another 10 percent. Both types can increase the risk of heart disease, although some research suggests trans fat may be the worst culprit.
Trans fat is in numerous products, from meats and dairy products to pastries. The most common source is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, where liquid oil is turned into a solid to protect against spoiling and maintain long-term flavor.
Typically, the harder a margarine or cooking fat, the more trans fat it includes. Soft, spreadable margarine in tubs, for instance, contains little if any trans fat, while stick margarine can contain a lot. In other foods, the only way consumers could tell which contained trans fat was to check the ingredient list for the word "hydrogenated."
The National Academy of Sciences, which sets nutrition levels, last year ruled that while eating some trans fat may be unavoidable, there is no safe level that it could set as an upper limit. So while product labels today list what percent of total calories a food offers in saturated fat, the new trans fat labels will won't.
FDA had considered putting a footnote on labels recommending eating only a little trans fat, but consumer testing found that had the unintended consequence of scaring people back to foods high in saturated fat, said Stephanie Childs of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, which lobbied against the move.
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